Rob Liefield

You know, I don't ever hear about too many people declaring that they're Rob Liefeld fans...usually the opposite, in fact. But someone's buying these comics.

… Mike Sterling

Over at Progressive Ruin, Mr. Sterling's commenting on the rapid sale of Onslaught: Reborn #5, the latest (late, last?) issue in Marvel's attempt to do a 10 year anniversary revisit to the Onslaught and Heroes Reborn story lines. Rob Liefeld, who must be one of the most hated men in comics, does the art.

I'm reluctantly going to admit to being a fan of Liefeld's work. I bought X-Force #1 solely for the art, and grabbed Youngblood #1 for the same reason. The guy can't draw feet, barely manages human anatomy and loves pockets far too much, but I still enjoy the energy and enthusiasm that fills some of his best work. When he was younger, working on something like Hawk and Dove, you could just see that he was a guy who loved what he was doing.

In the late 80s, early 90s, I think comic book art went through a revolution. On the one hand, you had folks like Erik Larsen, Rob Leifeld, Jim Valentino and Todd McFarlane on one side, who were injecting their books with high energy and loosey-goosey style that broke from the more staid works of people like Jerry Ordway, George Perez, Curt Swan, etc. On the other hand, there was the work of people like Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio, who stretched the realism and detail work of a Neal Adams, John Byrne and (once again) George Perez out to the limits.

I really enjoyed all these new artists works – they pushed comics into new, interesting looking directions. While Rob was probably the least polished of the bunch, he also seemed to have the most fun with what he was doing. At the time, and even today, I value fun in my comics a lot and so I became a fan.

I suspect that, as time has passed and things changed … because things always change as we grow older … that some of the fun Rob was having has passed. His work seems to be trying harder to conform to expectations of the audience, rather than his own imagination and ideas. While it remains identifiable as Rob Leifeld in style, a great deal of the energy and appeal for me has faded. Yet I can still look at the cover to something like Onslaught: Reborn and feel a bit of the rush that I had 15 or so years ago, going into the comic store.

I am a Rob Liefeld fan.